


the light in me will guide you home

by filiabelialis



Category: Mistworld Fictional TV Series Campaign
Genre: Gen, friendship is the best!, they're all a giant and dysfunctional family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filiabelialis/pseuds/filiabelialis
Summary: “We have a flying ship!”Athol, peering into the hatch, speaks into the bubble of silence that appears whenever the habitually quiet choose to share their thoughts. “I wonder what it runs on?”





	the light in me will guide you home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_W_Is_Silent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_W_Is_Silent/gifts).

“We have a flying ship!” 

“Well,” says Merineth, dodging a hole through which Leila can see clear out the bottom of the hull, “most of a flying ship.” 

Leila takes in the missing planks, the crooked masts, the ripped sails, the issues in the rigging visible even to a landlubber like herself. “I’d like to see exactly how much of a ship we have,” she says, “and how much we can mend.” 

Athol, peering into the hatch, speaks into the bubble of silence that appears whenever the habitually quiet choose to share their thoughts. “I wonder what it runs on?” 

***

“Screw it, we aren’t _in_ your temple right now,” says Alokas, grabbing a handful of Rai’s spicy peanuts and nearly falling through a hole in the deck. Rai looks at him with exaggerated affront. 

The entire thing is baffling, beginning with the fact that Rai and Alokas decided to prioritize smuggling their favorite non-perishable snacks into a liminal dimension with flying ships. Itzal stares at Alokas in open puzzlement, but his only response is to catch Rai’s eye and make a little _go on, it’s your schpiel_ gesture, his mouth full. 

Rai steals another pinch of Alokas’ dessert and squares her shoulders like a child reciting a lesson. “It is not only meet but smiled upon by the Laughing Rogue that the live-in members of the Greater Unsanctimonious Sanctuary of Olidammara thrive on victuals not purchased or claimed by themselves.” She finishes the declamation with her pilfered morsel and a satisfied, catlike expression. 

Leila glances up from where she’s mending the deck. “It’s actually in your temple edicts that food is better when it’s stolen?” she grins.

_Bullshit,_ Alokas mouths to one side of a shielding hand. Rai swats him despite being unable to see his mouth from where she’s sitting. “Let’s not forget the part where it’s only acceptable for temple members to do it--it’s totally unacceptable and rude for people outside the church to do it back,” Alokas continues aloud. 

Merineth, nearby at the control orb, snorts as if to say, _it figures_. Alokas takes advantage of Rai’s momentary glare in Merineth’s direction to steal a generous handful of peanuts. He shovels the entire fistful shamelessly in his mouth the moment Rai turns back to face him. It’s pretty disgusting, actually--Itzal has seen her grandmother literally slurp up an entire cow in one bite at family dinners, but it didn’t involve nearly as much...cheek distention? Mammalian chewing? She doesn’t know, she just knows that what she’s seeing is awful.

“This isn’t weirder than your sneezing thing, where you race to touch your nose afterwards,” says Rai, failing to mask her disgust at Alokas’...face. Unholy facial business. 

“It’s bad luck if you lose, like who-will-die-next bad.” He shrugs. “Besides, some people get really competitive about that game; it’s a hard habit to kick.” 

“Nobody _I_ know.” 

“New competition,” says Leila, “The first one to help me mend this ship wins my gratitude.”

*** 

“The fuck you want to go down there for? It’s not like killing the shambling mist mounds reduces their number.” Alokas fails to get a good sneer going while upside down. His silks are suspended from the yardarm rather than his usual immovable rod, which Merineth is fairly sure must effect the point of sail, but is necessary for Alokas not being left hanging in the mist while the ship travels out from under him. Or at least, that’s how conventional physics would dictate space behaving. Like most things, it might be different in the mist. The ship seems to be moving smoothly enough in spite of him, in any case. 

Merineth takes full advantage of the upright ground to turn up her nose at him. “I want a run. You’re not the only one who likes morning exercise. Honestly, I’m shocked you’re awake this early.” _Honestly,_ she thinks, _if there was ever a person antithetical to the concept of self-discipline, it would be you._

“I wasn’t working last night,” Alokas answers, as though this explains it all. “Or rather, before we went to sleep, because, relatedly,” he says, turning to face her over (under?) one shoulder as he spins slowly, “how do you know it’s morning?” 

“Can you lower me down or not?” 

“Can you get yourself back up?” 

“Are you _not_ going to pull me back up?” 

Alokas shrugs, making himself bob slightly on the silk. Merineth continues to stand before him, arms akimbo, so he’s forced to elaborate. “You’re buff and I think taller than me. You have to at least help.” 

“Fine. Let’s get to it.” 

Merineth hits the ground running the moment she slips off the rope. She has to--lingering will draw the mist shamblers, and the ship is travelling a bit faster than she realized. She’s having to maintain a healthy lope just to keep up. 

Above her, Alokas scurries from the railing toward the control orb in the stern. “ATHOL,” he yells, “ATHOL QUICK MAKE THE SHIP GO FASTER.” 

“YOU’RE A DICK AND I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP,” Merineth yells back. Aja witness, she’s going to piss in his shoes if this isn’t a joke. Maybe even if it is. The ship wouldn’t leave her behind, would it? She’s been polite to it. It...doesn’t hate her. 

“RAI WILL PROTECT ME.” 

Speak of the pit fiend and she shall appear, thinks Merineth as Rai’s head emerges from a porthole. “Hey, Leila wants to know if you could possibly stop screaming? People are still trying to sleep.” 

Alokas yells “SORRY,” at the same moment Merineth does so at lower volume. She’s starting to get a little breathless at this pace, but manages to ask, “So, Rai: what would it take to get you to make Alokas not pick on me?” 

Rai actually seems to consider it. “Honestly?” she says, breaking into a shit-eating grin, “Probably only divine influence. I literally do not think I can stop him.” 

“Fair enough,” Merineth pants. “You’re both assholes.”

Rai laughs and shuts the porthole. Alokas is cackling in the rigging, and the sound motivates her to put on a burst of speed; she sprints and catches the still-trailing rope. Let the smug little fucker laugh at that. 

***

“Don’t like your hand?” Alokas grins at Leila, who is shifting in her chair again. It’s a distraction rather than a tell, Rai’s pretty sure. Granted, Rai might be on higher alert than usual. Tymora was banished to the center of the crate currently serving as a card table, unable to see anyone’s hand, on pain of Rai’s instant forfeiture of the game. Surprisingly, this wasn’t Merineth’s idea: Merineth, dutiful beyond fucking measure like she is, has abstained from the game because someone must drive the ship. 

Whatever, so Rai has to cheat the old fashioned way. Not that this is impossible: they’re packed pretty tight around the crate, chair legs bumping. It was a miracle they even found enough random chairs and stools, but the ship has a funny way of providing, sometimes. 

Rai thinks Leila might be trying something as well; Leila’s too good at putting on a game face to let her fidgets get out of control. 

“Actually,” Leila says, after a moment of hesitation, “Can we switch chairs? I cannot stop sitting on my tail in this one.” 

Alokas just stares, and Rai can sympathize--as a ploy to look at cards this is a strange one, and not very effective-- 

“You forgot I had a tail,” says Leila, reading Alokas’ expression very differently. 

“Actually,” says Alokas, getting up from his seat--setting his cards facedown first, sensibly, and sliding them along the crate toward Leila’s seat-- “I’m not sure I ever knew you had one?” 

Rai looks at Alokas’ face, and finds, to her extreme surprise, that he isn’t lying. 

“We’ve. We’ve been all together for weeks,” says Leila. 

“I have occasionally been called self-involved,” replies Alokas, which gets half the table giggling. Rai tries to use the moment to peek--to her left side first, for luck--at Itzal’s cards, but Itzal is sitting _just_ too far away. 

“We played _strip poker._” 

“There were a lot of naked people to look at!” More giggling, and Rai actually scoots close enough to catch a glimpse of Itzal’s cards. 

Leila, who is rounding the crate, definitely catches her at it, but like a true friend, says nothing. Instead she keeps up the bit with Alokas. “Way to make a girl feel special.” 

“Why Leila,” gushes Alokas, “I had no idea you cared for my opinion in that regard.” They continue to flirt outrageously as the game goes on, but it’s not a distraction for Rai. It’s all just banter; and it’s catching the attention of the other players, an opportunity she is absolutely not allowing to slip by. She tries for a glimpse of Athol’s hand next.

*** 

“Spell component?” Leila nods at the ruby in Itzal’s hand, which she has been practically gloating over since they left the timeline. It’s either that or insurance for the next timeline, where they might actually value gold and gems. 

Itzal looks uncharacteristically sheepish. “Um, more like a habit.” Which doesn’t sound like Itzal, really. Leila’s seen her spend freely, generously, even recklessly. She doesn’t seem the type to pick up coppers off the street. 

“I, uh, tried to build a hoard as a kid,” Itzal confesses, before Leila can ask. “Mostly worthless stuff. Colored glass, toys, cheap jewelry.” 

“Like--you mean like it was a dragon thing?” Leila feels herself smiling at the weirdness of it, and of the mental image of a tiny Itzal with a tangled, shiny mass of what a little draconic kid would think of as treasure. 

“Yeah, or, y’know, I really wanted to be like my grandmother, so I thought I should have a hoard too. I mostly just shoved things places until they overflowed the hidey holes, though. My dad eventually moved my bed onto the floor because he got sick of cleaning under it.” 

“Gross but adorable.” 

Itzal’s sharp teeth flash forth when she laughs. “That’s being charitable. But I guess with our uh, currency conversion issues, it might not be a bad habit to fall back into, huh?” 

“Worst case scenario, our ship will never need ballast again.” Oh, and that’s a thought Leila hasn’t had before, even with all her mending--does a flying ship need ballast? Is the gyroscope sufficient, or does it drain the ship’s power to keep itself upright unaided? Maybe she should mention it to Athol. He’ll probably be curious enough to get to the bottom of it, even with all the other research on his plate. 

“Oh gods,” says Itzal. “Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t be shoving all my treasure in--okay, there’s this little room off the galley, I think it’d be a...larder? On regular ships, but we don’t really need rations the same way here--uh, anyway. I’ve been stashing some things? Maybe I should rethink where to store cargo.” 

Maybe you should share the loot, thinks Leila, but that’s not fair. Itzal fronted them so much money, in the beginning, when they were stumbling through the initial mystery of their link. Perhaps it’s fair that she keep things to herself--the group certainly hasn’t had any kind of formal discussion about pooling funds. Leila just thought that their situation made that conclusion increasingly obvious. 

_They don’t have tiefling sensibilities,_ Leila says to herself. The reproach she feels along with that thought is aimed equally at herself and the others, like all the hurt that moves between them. 

“Maybe,” is all Leila says aloud. But the ship presents a solution: as the two of them move belowdecks, Leila spots what look to be storage lockers amid the smaller crates in the center of the middle deck, in plain view of all. A balanced location, both in terms of aeronautics and accessibility. 

“What about those?” Leila points them out. This subject will be more gracefully broached as a passing suggestion than an involved discussion, anyway. 

*** 

Spooky story night is a baller idea. Given that Alokas just popped a crate open--a crate that absolutely wasn’t there in the original shipwreck, nor was it something they brought into the Mistworld with them--and found a bundle of tapers tucked amidst a pile of blankets and pillows large enough to sit on, it seems the ship agrees with him. As long as they are periodically trapped in an ever-shifting, time-distorted mystery dimension full of poison mist and dead gods, they might as well lean into the creepiness. 

He finds a comfortable corner, and sets up. Pillows all over the floor. Some blankets hung from the beams, creating a warm barricade between this hidey hole and the rest of the deck, and some folded and piled, available to wrap up in. He places the candles around in corners, and a bunch in the center of the blanket fort, before considering that he’s combining open flames with flammable fabrics and a wooden (albeit very magical) ship. He lights them with faerie fire instead, manifesting the heatless lights in shades of green and purple, creating a satisfyingly eerie atmosphere. The ship’s timbers groan, perhaps in gratitude to Alokas for being careful with the candles, or maybe just to get in on the spooky action. “That’s perfect--keep it up,” murmurs Alokas, patting the hull. Then he sends Tymora to collect the others. 

Rai and Nyka arrive first, clearly thrilled to be having what is essentially a slumber party. It makes sense--they missed out on a lot of shared childhood, and Alokas isn’t even sure what kind of childhood Nyka must have had, with the world crashing down around him every day. Good, they deserve this. 

Merineth comes next, poking her head in to offer tea from the galley before vanishing again, and bringing a steam-spouting kettle and a tray of mugs back with her. Leila follows with Bashal at her heels, and the space becomes abruptly cozy as the winter wolf curls up along one blanket wall. Leila stands for one distracted moment, as though listening to a voice in her head, before settling against Bashal, a little smile spreading on her lips. 

They all look up in surprise when Athol joins them. “Who’s driving?” asks Rai, prudently. 

“Shiko. Apparently she thinks this is a bit childish.” 

“Too bad for her,” says Leila, sipping her tea. “Who’s starting?” 

Alokas gets them started with a bloody one the assassins’ guild initiates used to terrorize each other with in the dorms at night after training, about a guild initiate who loved to shed blood so much he began drinking it, and consuming the flesh of his fellows. He wonders if Ajora remembers that one, and if so what she thinks of it now. 

Merineth follows it up with one about a headless spirit that she says she used to tell her brother; it’s not scary but, much to everyone’s delight, involves _silly voices_. It’s the perfect answer to Alokas’ story, setting up a range in tone so that people won’t worry their stories aren’t good enough. 

Except that backfires a little, because after Rai is done with hers, and Nyka politely declines to take a turn, Rai signs quickly at him in their modified Rogue’s Cant, _remember making me wet the bed with that one?_ and Nyka hesitates just a little too long before signing back, _yes_. It’s so obviously a bad lie that Alokas nearly feels his heart twist with Rai’s. The stories and the events they remember from their childhoods aren’t the same. It’s a marker of distance between them, and Rai reaches over to fold her hand in Nyka’s, to close the gap. 

Athol is already speaking, not so much telling a story as sharing some of the interesting superstitions the Ayerheim dwarves have as a result of being kicked out of the Underdark by the shadows--they don’t trust anything they hear unless they can see who’s speaking to them.

“One more way our Athol is exceptional,” says Alokas, flashing a grin at him. Athol answers with a very dignified harrumph. 

Leila says that she likes how scary stories are so shaped by culture, and tells them a tiefling one that’s clearly a metaphor for being named, about a spirit that comes to know you and love you so deeply it can move your body as its own. She tells it so beautifully and frighteningly; makes the act of walking involuntarily into your own destruction seem intimate as well as horrifying. Alokas feels a chill travel down his spine, then feels it disperse again as Rai leans into his side. 

*** 

The modest collection of books--it’s a bit too small for Athol to call it a library--is one of the first things the ship brings back, after its insane trip into the whirlpool. Athol supposes that this is because he was one of the people absent for that decision, and as such, the ship bears him less ill will than it does most of the others. That would also explain why it still lets Alokas hang silks and clothes and makeshift hammocks all over the rigging. With any other craft he’d call this assessment sentimental, but from what he’s observed of this one, the supposition is not unsound. 

In any case, he’s not complaining: he has to read up on planar theory as much as he can in any spare time he has, and lately, that’s been in the mist. The others went to bed half an hour ago, and now he’s got the quiet, and the candlelight, here in the cabin of the ship. He gets to work. 

The next thing he knows, after a haze of cosmological diagrams and dense metaphysical theory, is that his right cheek is resting on a page, and there is a curious weight on his shoulders, and Rai’s voice is saying, in a stage whisper, “Fuck no I’m not coming in without my light! He’s a shadow magnet!” 

“Just _peek_,” Alokas’ voice whispers back, much closer. In the room with Athol. “You’re gonna wake him up, you’re gonna miss--” 

Athol sits up, and a cascade of books shifts off his back and onto the floor. 

“Aw, fuck!” yelps Alokas, partly in surprise, but mostly in annoyance. Athol is going to take an educated guess and assume the book tower was his handiwork. Rai is peeking around the door to the cabin, her white mage light glowing above her head. 

“You two opted not to sleep?” Athol asks, with as much gravity as he can muster. He had asked the ship to wake him if anyone came in. 

“In fairness, I think it tried,” says Alokas, which tells Athol he must have muttered aloud. Alokas is pointing at Athol’s hand, which he now sees has several small, red beak marks in it. The budgie must have been increasingly ungentle as Athol failed to wake. The creature--ship--core?--itself is sitting on its usual perch. It fluffs its feathers in a dignified manner. 

“We slept nearly eight hours. Uh. Subjectively,” adds Rai. She’s been keeping time with Tymora, no doubt. The candle next to Athol’s book is still lit--hasn’t even gone down, an eerie mark of how time is as fluid and ethereal here as the mist itself. “You sleep like the dead, evidently--except when a light turns on.” 

There’s something behind her eyes doing calculations as she says it. _Were you always this light sensitive, before you gave yourself to the shadows?_ it seems to say. If he’s truthful, Athol isn’t sure what the answer to that question is. He remembers thinking, when he first began to travel the Plane Below, how much dimmer the stars appeared from there than from the clear skies of Ayerheim. Last time the travelers were in a timeline, the stars had seemed quite bright.

He rises, suddenly awkward, and straightens the books, then himself, before following Rai and Alokas out of the cabin. 

***

Leila carefully maneuvers her long horns around the doorway to shout to the loitering group. “DINNER!” 

Rai is so stoked. Leila said she was making one of her favorites, and the smells drifting out of the galley for the last little while have been _phenomenal_. Everyone seems to think so, because with the exception of Athol flying the ship, the rest of their crew has coalesced to hover near the source of the cooking aromas. 

The food is insane. Not just in the good way, though it is incredible--some kind of thick stew into which Leila has tossed basically all their ration odds and ends, spiced elaborately and served with rice. It’s also _painfully_ spicy. Apparently the secret ingredient is a kind of hot sauce that most stores outside of tiefling neighborhoods don’t even bother stocking. Leila has been hoarding a bottle or two in her blinged-out bag of holding. She adds a bit more to the pot, tail waving contentedly back and forth, pretending not to notice the tears streaming down everyone’s faces. 

Alokas, sitting slouched on top of a barrel, sniffles hugely. “This is easily one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten,” he says, congested. “And I’m so going to regret pooping later.” 

“Your compliments could still use work,” Leila says, not turning from the pot. There’s a laugh in her voice, though. 

“If you don’t want it, I’ll eat yours,” says Merineth around a mouthful of food. 

“Did everyone miss the part where I said this was an amazing culinary experience? Quit mooching, you have your own.” Alokas deepens his slouch, nearly curling protectively around the bowl. 

Learning that Alokas used to be a halfling recontextualizes things like that for Rai; how when he isn’t performing he is often moving in ways to make himself smaller. 

Nyka appears at her elbow, looking dubiously around at the group of people hovering ambiguously between suffering and thorough enjoyment. Rai offers him her bowl to try from before his commits to his own, and he nabs a bite. 

“So, Nyka,” says Alokas, “is it true that your and Rai’s Olidammaran order said food was better stolen?” 

Rai shoots Alokas a fake-scandalized look, as if to say _you doubt my word, sir?_ at the same time Nyka quips back with an equally scandalized, “Of course!” Her heart lifts a little in triumph, the way it always does when Nyka confirms they share a point of reference. 

“Hm,” says Alokas, his eyes skating sideways to Rai, sneaky. “What about the dog thing?” 

Rai had names for all the stray dogs in her neighborhood, as a child, and told herself--and Nyka--elaborate stories where they were her loyal gang. Later, older, much drunker, she also confided this fact to Alokas, who is now milking her family for as many embarrassing stories about her as he can, like a _traitor_. 

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” says Nyka, and Rai thinks that _maybe_ he doesn’t know, but the way he says that says he does. This is how the people she loves keep secrets from each other, badly enough that their honesty might be honor among thieves, or it might be its own kind of camouflage. It’s not even just Alokas and her brothers anymore, either; it’s Leila’s brazen bullshitting, Merineth’s awkward forthrightness, Athol’s unadorned silences, all their idiosyncrasies: sources of friction and conflict worn smooth into joking, and camaraderie. 

It’s weird, but she kind of loves them all for it. 

*** 

“Are you,” says Merineth to the ship, hesitation and guilt and urgent necessity heavy in her, “okay with this?” 

The ship is quiet, as it thinks. They ask so much. And this, after they already nearly destroyed it rather than lose some of their own, like the ship was only a possession, and now they ask it _again_\-- 

But this time, they are asking. And it knows, hearing their talk above, feeling them recoil in horror at the prospect of this sacrifice, that should the ship say _no, spare me_, they would. They couldn’t bring themselves to betray it. 

They have taken so much from it already. 

But have they also not given? Every secret revealed, every worry confided, every plan made and story shared and game played and wound healed and grief comforted and guilt held and meal shared and tear shed and every laugh, every laugh spilled between or on its decks and up into the misty sky around them, has all fed the ship. Built it. They took, yes--but they apologized, and healed, and mended. They gave the ship its soul, made from the places their souls touched. Its joints and junctions are all theirs, too. 

It knows that it won’t ever be the same, if it goes through with this. To retreat into itself...it will no longer be a wooden heart, beating with their shared footsteps and foibles, circulating their gestures and grace. It will become a zygote self, an egg in its orb, and then it will be something it cannot conceive of. They have mortal hearts. If they become gods, the souls that shape the ship, and by extension the ship itself, will change. 

But that is fitting too, it knows. Whether they transcend or perish, the ship should follow. So much of it is part of them that to be something they aren’t seems anathematic. 

“If this is the best way for me to serve,” says the ship, “then yes.” 

Merineth nods, and thanks it, and it feels the echoes of the others in her mind expressing their gratitude, a little chorus of unspoken loves. Merineth withdraws, and the ship--not its core but it’s consciousness--follows her, spilling down into its bilge and hull, and abovedecks where she joins the others and out into the very tips of its masts and ropes and sails. It takes its chance to feel every part of itself. It reverberates in every beam and bowline, and thinks, knowing that it will be the last time this self can ever think it, _I am here, and I am whole, in my heart and self. _

_I am here with them. _


End file.
